Cashflow 101 E-game is the pc game version of the popular financial education board game, Cashflow 101. To those of you who are unfamiliar with who Robert Kiyosaki is, he is the author of the best-selling book: Rich Dad, Poor Dad. The objective of Cashflow 101 E-game is to get out of the rat race and into the fast track to achieve your dream, that is, to achieve financial freedom. As a person who has never played the real Cashflow board game before, I find the digital/software version pretty interesting and quite addictive. At first impression, the e-game was amazing in graphics but needs more improvements in the background music and game options.

Visit the Rich Dad store to see customer reviews of Cashflow 101 E-game or get info on the real cashflow board game.

Throughout your journey to achieve your dream, there will be two characters accompanying you. They are Red E. Rat (RR) and Timid T. Turtle (TT), RR serves as your mentor (Voice by Robert Kiyosaki himself) and TT is pretty much a newbie in financial literacy. Sometimes during the game, TT will ask RR questions about bank loans, brokers, etc and RR will answer them from a Rich Dad point of view. Both TT and RR will react to the choices you make (for e.g. if you made a good buy, RR or TT will give a thumbs up!). Furthermore, you’ll be required to fill in your financial statements (balance sheet and income statement) with the right items, so as to get you familiar with balancing your cashflow accounts and differentiating assets from liabilities. In this computer version, it’s an easy click-and-drag of the items to financial statements. I heard from cashflow board game players that playing the board game is more "tedious" but it provides a better learning experience because you do your own calculations and fill in your cashflow statement with a good ol’ pencil.

At the main menu, you will be given an option whether you want to play in single player, multiplayer or hot-seat multi-player mode. Hot-seat multiplayer means you can play with more than 1 player on your own computer. As for the multiplayer mode, a subscription is necessary to play over the internet.

The game also allows you to have access to all of Robert’s videos, it can also be watched during the game when you need help. I find this a bonus as the videos are conducted by Robert Kiyosaki himself.

Before the game starts, you will be given a random profession. You can be a lawyer, k-12 teacher, etc. Each profession has different salary, expenses and debts when you start the game, giving different playing experiences. A lawyer has a higher salary, but more expensive education loans to pay off, more expensive car & house loans, etc.

The Rat Race
At the rat race, there will be these squares:

Opportunities

When a player lands on this square, the player will be given a choice of “Big Deal” and “Small Deal”. The small deals are less than $5,000 – Certificate of Deposits, stocks, small residential houses, etc. The big deals exceeds $5000 and includes deals for apartments, plexes, businesses, etc.

Paycheck
When a player steps on or crosses this square, the player will receive a pay check/ net monthly income

Downsize
The player will have to pay an amount equal to the total expenses and lose 3 turns.

Baby
Your monthly expenses will increase because you have to feed your new baby. Baby expenses depends on which profession you have.

Doodad
These are mostly one-off expenses which are small unnecessary/luxury items we buy (watches, fancy dinner) to big items which requires loans like boats.

Market
In this square, you’ll know that a buyer is looking for properties or business. You get to sell your property or business if it matches the card.

Charity
In the rat race, you can only roll one dice. Unless you donate 10% of your income to charity, you get to roll up to two dices

Once your passive income exceeds your expenses, then you shall
proceed to the fast track. Although this sounds very easy when I first started, I lost about 4 times before I was able to finally reach the fast track.

The Fast Track

Your income in fast track is nothing like the income you get in the rat race, your income will be in hundred thousands. I find the fast track too… well, too easy. You’ll never need a loan in the fast track. Except for losing all the cash and unable to purchase anything, it doesn’t really matter at all because you’ll eventually get back your monthly income. The deals in the fast track are, of course, higher in price. You’ll be buying franchises, IPOs, etc, etc. Most of the time, the FIRST person who reaches the fast track will also be the FIRST to win the whole race… except in some rare cases that the first person keeps losing money and can’t buy his dream or assets which generate passive income. On the fast track, the winner is determined based on how fast you are able to buy your dream or get $50,000 in passive income.

Rants

Although the game has its educational values, being a person who enjoys playing computer games I have to criticize on some of the game options aspects. Personally, I find it annnoying to have to click “ok” everytime the computer players draw a card or rolls the dice. Also, the animation (like rat walking on the board after dice is thrown) is repetitive, I’d like to have the option to turn it off. At the end of the game, the top 3 winners are shown with their respective scores, and I have no idea how these scores are calculated!

Wish list

Here’s my wish list:
- A choice to turn off the TT and RR characters.
- Choice to turn off the animation of the rat walking on the
board everytime the dice is thrown
- Option to disable the need for me to click “ok” everytime a computer player rolls the dice or draws a card
- More conversation dialogues between TT and RR
- More variety of background music

Overall Conclusion
So did Cashflow 101 E-game teach me a lesson in financial education? It sure did! I didn’t mind taking out a loan to finance my real estate as long as it gave positive cashflow. I grunge when I step on the “downsize” square, NOT because I have to pay an amount equal to my expenses, but because I won’t have the chance to step on any “opportunity” squares to increase my passive income for 3 whole rounds! After playing the game a few times, I wasn’t worried about the amount of money I have and I easily build my passive income through good debt. However, I think the real Cashflow board game is more flexible because players can make up their own rules to add more "real-world" situations in the game, I guess this is what the cashflow 101 e-game is lacking. But Cashflow 101 E-game is great for beginners, furthermore it is cheaper than the Cashflow board game and you can with computer players when you are alone.

Visit the website to see customer reviews of Cashflow 101 E-game or get info on the cashflow board game.

37 Comments on “Cashflow 101 E-game”

“The e-game, Cashflow 101, is excellent. It is a fun and can be very challenging, especially when you are a doctor or lawer and get alot of bad dice rolls to doodads, downsizing or items you should not invest in. And besides learning about money and finace. You can learn something about yourself and about being persistent in getting out of the rat race and reaching your goal(s), even if you are the last.”

“My friend pruchased the board game version of Cashflow 101 about two years ago. We found it difficult to get a group together on a regular basis to play the game. The E-Game version allows the game to be played more often and without the need to have multiple players. I feel I have been able to pick-up and experiment with the Cashflow concepts in greater detail by playing the E-game. I would love to see Cashflow 202 made into an E-Game as well.

A very educational game indeed, this is one game I would highly recommend to another person looking to get out of the ‘Rat Race’ and achieve financial freedom, since the game really makes the player realise what they should and should not invest in. Another area is the dependancy on chance. Although this is after all, a board game, sometimes, a person’s luck would drag the gameplay experience. A simple example would be buying a BOAT the first few times you start the game, which really throws off the mood to further play the game.

Hoping for a simplified version for Palm/PocketPC handhelds, that would be nice, since the gameplay is pretty simple and you can then bring the game away from the desktop computer.

As a university student I feel as though spending £39.99 or less on a investment book, such as FT guide to Investing, is more value for money than this game. It’s true this game teaches a lot but you can easily pick up these financial skills elsewhere for a much more reasonable price. If this game was superior than other educational tools, then at this price I’d be happy; this game’s teaching quality is on par with many other educational tools which are cheaper.

What would you buy when there are several choices and each of them are equivalent in quality but prices of some are a rip-off?

There is another board game I played years ago, I can’t really remember the name of it. But there’s a cat dressed in rich men’s stereotypical purple suit (think Scrooge) wearing gold rings and such on the middle of the board. Argh.. it’s killing me that I can’t remember it.

What I get out of this is that in the game, as in life, the rolls don’t always go your way. This is precisely why financial education and patience is vital to getting out of the rat race.

I have played the eVersion at least 50 times maybe more.

What I learn now, is more about myself. How I think regarding investing. As the turtle asks Rich Dad, about investing being risky! Rich Dads, reply, “there is always risk when investing, but you don’t have to be a risky investor. While playing the game, I sometimes find myself getting impatient, trying to win the GAME, rather than sticking to proper financial strategies. Thats being a risky investor.

These lessons, are the reasons to play the game.

Rule # 1 Know Thy Self

The game allows you to learn about how you think about… many things including money but even more about your own personality style.

It’s not only about winning the game at all cost/ high risk.

It’s about consistently winning every time, no matter what the circumstances. Be patient, proper strategy always wins out in the long run.

I’m usually not a big fan of many board games other than monopoly and some table top games like warhammer but rich dad has always been one of my most favorite books. Because I give him that much credit I would probably try his rat race as it seems that I’m stuck that way in life and hope maybe the game will show some enlightenment.

I am also a Big Fan, because before I played the game, actually the first couple of times I played the game, I didn’t even know where to put the items on the balance sheet. Talk about financially illiterate.

Now, it’s second nature.

But what’s better, is I now have my own financial statements in order, and now I base my daily spending habits on my financial statement, rather than just spending haphazardly.

Now, I don’t imagine, most people are as financially illterate as I was, but the CashFlow 101 has paid for itself many times over already.

BTW, I grew up playing Monopoly regularly as a kid, but never learned how to fill out a financial statement. I never looked at Monopoly as a learning tool, only as a game. OK, maybe I’m a slow learner.

The big lesson, I needed to learn was don’t use credit card debt for consumer purchases, use it to purchase assets. Therefore, look for opportunities to increase Cashflow, reduce my debts which increased my cashflow, then use my increased cashflow and good credit to purchase positive CashFlow Assets. Once my Cashflow exceeds my monthly expenses, I’m out of the rat race.

Good luck is where preparation meets opportunity.

Most good opportunities I’ve seen got past me because I wasn’t prepared in the past.

Now I’m feel I’m better prepared and I am learning how to recognize good opportunities!

I have one serious gripe with this game. At no point in the game do your rental properties end up without renters and you’re stuck paying big payments on your rental property without any income from them, resulting in a huge negative cashflow. You can have renters not pay for a single turn, which is fairly un-detremental. The game claims that it is possible to go bankrupt, but I can’t see how. If I ever get the doodad “all your renters move out and you have to go 6 months without any rental income” then I’ll modify this criticism. For now, this extremely rosy financial outlook teaches some terrible financial lessons regarding borrowing money because in the game the borrowed money is essentially risk free, something that people recently learned is strictly false. Ask your neighbor how that rental property they are paying 3000/month and can’t get a renter in are doing financially, and you’ll see that in reality getting out of the rat race simply by focusing on “positive cashflow” is much more risky than Rich Dad lets on.

I’ve been playing Cashflow 101&202 for the past year and started to implement the principles in real life with decent success. Recently I’ve realized that there are websites out there where you can ‘play’ games similar to Cashflow for free without paying any money. The benefit of these games for me is that the money that these online games use is real money from real world. Obviously, the opportunity to play with real money is a huge benefit when learning this very important skill. If you would like to try it out go to http://www.magnuscash.com and look for a project named ‘Cashflow trainer’. I believe it is still the most popular one on magnuscash.

I grew up in Soviet Union, so there was no good example around when I was a kid or a young person. When I got to the USA, I had a nagging feeling that I’m not handling my finances properly, but never quite gotten to learning the skills – until I started playing this game. Even though it has high variance and some unrealistic details, having a fun way to learn to use the balance sheet alone is worth it for me.

No… not really. Having unrealistic expectations will defeat you pretty quickly. I’ve been realistic and hard working for the past 2 years and managed to rake in some $500 in passive income. It’s very decent for the part of the world where I live in. Try out cashflow trainer (you can google it) and you can get a feel of how difficult it can be with real money (you won’t have to pay anything).